Infection and Immunity, June 1999, p. 2920-2927, Vol. 67, No. 6
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Department of Anatomy, Pathology, and Pharmacology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078
Received 10 November 1998/Returned for modification 13 January 1999/Accepted 16 March 1999
The presence of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in gram-negative bacterial
repeats-in-toxin (RTX) toxin preparations, as well as the harsh
conditions required to remove it, suggests that LPS may complex with
RTX toxins. Concentrated culture supernatant (CCS) preparations of the
RTX toxin Pasteurella haemolytica leukotoxin (LKT)
contained LKT and LPS as the most prominent components, with LKT and
LPS constituting
30 and 50% of the density of the silver-stained
fraction on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis
(SDS-PAGE), respectively. CCS LKT contained 3.69 ± 0.46 mg of LPS
per mg of protein, which was estimated to indicate an LPS/LKT molar
ratio of
60:1. Subjection of the CCS LKT to preparative SDS-PAGE
resulted in separation of LPS from LKT as detected by silver-stained
analytical SDS-PAGE; however, the LKT fraction (SDS-PAGE LKT) contained
significant endotoxin activity as detected by the Limulus
amebocyte lysate assay. Subjection of the SDS-PAGE LKT to a second
preparative SDS-PAGE run resulted in a reduction of the LPS/LKT molar
ratio to 1:20. The target cell specificity of LKT for bovine leukocytic
cells was retained by the SDS-PAGE LKT, and isolated LPS at comparable
concentrations to that in CCS LKT exhibited no leukolytic activity.
Addition of isolated LPS back to SDS-PAGE LKT resulted in
reconstitution of an LPS-LKT complex. Immediately following
reconstitution of the LPS-LKT complex, there was minimal change in
leukolytic activity of the complex, but following 9.5 h at
temperatures from
135 to 37°C, the LPS-LKT complex exhibited
increased leukolytic activity and thermal stability compared to
SDS-PAGE LKT. Therefore, it appears that LPS complexes with LKT,
resulting in enhanced and stabilized leukolytic activity.
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